The Dark River

Travelers had always encountered resistance from the authorities, but in the modern era a group of men called the Brethren began to identify Travelers and kill them before they could challenge the established order. Inspired by the ideas of Jeremy Bentham, an eighteenth-century British philosopher, the Brethren wanted to establish a Virtual Panopticon, an invisible prison that would contain everyone in the industrial world. The Brethren believed that once the population assumed they were being watched at all times, they would automatically follow the rules.

The true symbol of the age was a closed-circuit surveillance camera. Computerized information systems had formed a Vast Machine that could link images and information to monitor large populations. For thousands of years, those in power had tried to ensure the permanency of their particular system. Finally, this dream of social control had become a real possibility.

The Brethren had entered Michael’s and Gabriel’s lives when they were growing up on a farm in South Dakota. A team of mercenaries looking for their father had attacked their home and set fire to the buildings. The two Corrigan brothers had survived, but their father had disappeared. Years later, after being raised by their mother off the Grid, the Corrigans ended up in Los Angeles. Nathan Boone and his men first captured Michael, and then Gabriel. They transported both brothers to the Evergreen Foundation’s Research Center.

The Brethren’s scientists had built a powerful quantum computer, and the subatomic particles at the heart of the machine had enabled communication with the other realms that only Travelers had been able to explore. The new quantum computer was supposed to track a Traveler’s passage across the four barriers to other worlds, but a young Harlequin named Maya had destroyed it when she rescued Gabriel.

Whenever Michael evaluated his new change in status, he had to admit that Maya’s attack on the Research Center was the crucial step in his personal transformation. He had shown his loyalty-not to his brother-but to the Brethren. Once the wreckage was cleaned up and a new security perimeter was established, Michael had returned to the center. He was still a prisoner, but eventually everyone in the world was going to be part of an enormous prison. The only real distinction was your level of awareness. There was going to be a new alignment of power in the world, and he planned to be on the winning side.

IT HAD TAKEN only a few sessions in the room for Michael to be seduced by the power of the Vast Machine. There was something about sitting in the chair that made you feel like God looking down from heaven. Right now, the young woman wearing the leather jacket had just stopped at a makeup counter and was chatting with the salesclerk. Michael slipped on the headset and pressed a switch. Immediately, he was talking to the Brethren’s new computer center in Berlin.

“This is Michael. I want to speak to Lars.”

“Just a minute, please,” said a woman with a German accent. A few seconds later, Lars came on the line. He was always helpful, and never asked impertinent questions.

“Okay. I’m at Printemps in Paris,” Michael said. “The target is at the makeup counter. So how do I get her personal information?”

“Let me take a look,” Lars said.

A small red light appeared on the lower right corner of the screen. That meant Lars had access to the same image. Often several technicians were watching the same surveillance system or you attached yourself to the activities of a bored security guard sitting in a monitoring room somewhere. The guards-who were supposedly the first line of defense against terrorists and criminals-spent a great deal of their time stalking women through malls and then out into the parking lot. If you switched on the audio, you could hear them chatting to one another and laughing when a woman wearing a tight skirt was about to get into a sports car.

“We can reduce her face to an algorithm and compare it to the photographs in the French passport database,” Lars explained. “But it’s much easier if we just pick up her credit card number. Look at your personal monitor and click the dedicated telecommunications option. Type in as much information as possible: location of the phone, date, time-which is right now, of course. The Carnivore program will skim her number the moment it’s transmitted.”

The store clerk slid the young woman’s card through a scanner and numbers flashed onto the screen. “And there it is,” Lars said as if he were a magician who had taught his apprentice a new trick. “Now double-click…”